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Wolves 1 Southampton 4: Phillips hurts sinking Wolves

DAVE JONES had drawn inspiration from the wonder he worked at Southampton five years ago. Then he revived a team that had been in the bottom three all season whose escape came by winning their final three games. But the damage to Wolves is surely unsalvageable. For all Jones’s defiance, they are playing out their death scene.

It was the combination of James Beattie and Kevin Phillips that inflicted the gravest wounds on Wolves, though a lot of the damage was self-inflicted, too.

Wolves gave the ball away too easily, conceded goals too cheaply. Claus Lundekvam had waited 296 games and eight years to score in a Saints shirt but presented with the kind of chance that fell to him two minutes short of the hour he would score every week.

It was only after Lundekvam had secured for his side a two-goal advantage — Beattie fired Southampton ahead with a